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After reading the post yesterday on earning an income as a stay at home mom, you might be motivated to actually try it out. You sit down and think through the list of things you want to do, and decide that blogging sounds like an awesome way to make money from home! You love to write, so why not get paid to write?

It’s not quite so simple.

Blogging is an amazing, very modern way of earning money from home. It’s so modern that most people still don’t understand how I actually earn any money from having a blog. It is totally possible to earn a part time, or even a full time income from blogging!

It doesn’t happen overnight though.

Trying to start earning a good income from a blog takes a lot of time. For a few, it can happen within 6 months to a year. Those are the people that work 60 hours a week on their blog, going crazy trying to make it become successful. They are extremely driven and make a lot of sacrifices. These success stories are very much the exception however.

For a lot of bloggers it can take a few years to grow their blog to the point where it brings in a good income for them. You have to be totally committed for the long haul to make blogging be successful, and you can’t desperately need money right away. When your blog does grow, it is fantastic. However, it takes a lot more work than other types of jobs. Showing up at the library part time each week is a lot easier than trying to grow a blog.

Do you want to be a blogger?

So. You still think it sounds amazing to be a blogger? Great! There are some really awesome moments of being a blogger.

To start with, you need to pick your topic. This goes back to what I talked about yesterday, you need to write about something you are passionate about. I can promise you, there will come moments that you are burnt out, you don’t want to stay up late one more night writing yet one more blog post. If you are not truly passionate about the topic you are going to write about, don’t even try starting a blog!

While you have to be passionate about your topic, you also need to consider if the topic you pick is broad enough to have a good readership base. Some bloggers will automatically earn more than others, simply because of the topic they pick. If you are a deal blogger, constantly sharing sales with your readers, you will start earning money more quickly. If you don’t like finding good deals though, this isn’t for you!

Let’s say you love animals, and have a heart for elephants. You love to talk to all your friends about elephants, and what we should be doing to help them. You have to stop and ask yourself, while this is a topic you might be passionate about, is there a large enough audience that wants to read a blog only about saving elephants? Can you monetize that blog at all?

Consider both your passion and your audience, if you want to earn money from your blog.

Before You Jump In…

A few things to consider before you dive into the world of blogging. Think through the time you have in your day. In order to blog, something has to go. Will it be gourmet meals, reading to your children for 15 minutes a day together instead of an hour, giving up sleep, or being content with staying at home a lot to work on your blog? It can be a strain on your family, so you really need to think through all of this before you jump in. We have only made this work for so long because my husband has always been self employed as well. Our family dynamics are set up to make it work, but it still isn’t easy. If your husband works 80 hours a week and you have a lot of little ones, it might not be the best season in life to start a blog. Not every mother is called to be a blogger, so don’t feel pressured into blogging just because your friend might blog.

One other thing to consider is social media. If your family isn’t big on having social media accounts, you might not want to start blogging. While it is possible to blog without social media, it is really hard! You really need to be connected with a few social media accounts (I’ve chosen Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram to be active on).

How to Start a Blog?

There is no way I can cover all the information on how to actually start a blog in this one post. So in summary, I would just strongly encourage you to start out with a WordPress.org blog if you have every intention of making this a business. A blogger blog is free, but you don’t actually own your content, and your blog could get deleted. With WordPress, you pay for the hosting each year, but you actually own your domain and your site.

I started with blogger, but eventually transferred over to WordPress. It was a huge pain, and I had to pay someone to move it over for me. I really wish I had started with WordPress from the beginning!

If you are just starting out, Bluehost is an affordable way to pay for hosting each month. Right now they even have a super awesome sale going on, where you only pay $3.95 a month! However, I don’t suggest staying with Bluehost once you get to be larger. If your host doesn’t provide enough server space (I’m not techy, so I’ll leave it at that!), your blog will be slow, and your readers will not even be able to access your blog at times.

Once my blog grew larger, I moved to a bigger hosting company, and switched yet again. I’m currently with RackGeek, where I pay $30 a month for hosting. As your blog grows, your expenses do increase, but at the same time your income grows.

How to Earn Money from Blogging?

This is what you all want to know! How do you possibly earn money from blogging?

There are several different ways.

Ads on your blog – While I don’t like having ads on my blog, I currently do have them on my blog because it’s my main source of income from my blog alone. You can earn anywhere from a few dollars a month, to thousands of dollars a month on ads on your site. It really depends on the traffic you have, and how well your ads are set up. I use an actual ad service to manage my ads (AdThrive, a Christian owned company), because I don’t have the technical skills to mess with it all. They do a great job of managing it, and I can email them anytime and request an ad to be removed from my site.

Being an Affiliate – You can sign up to promote products you love, and earn a commission if someone purchases through your link! This is another great way I earn money from blogging. For example, I use and love the All About Reading program in our homeschool. Since I already love it, and would share with you all how much I love it, I am an affiliate with them and earn a commission if someone purchases from that company through my link.

The important thing here is to be 100% honest. Only become an affiliate with products you have personally used and loved. People will only trust you if you can honestly recommend a product. Don’t become an affiliate for a company just because the commission is good, if you have never even used the product!

Do Sponsored Posts – When you work on building your traffic to your blog, at some point you can start charging for reviews. Some bloggers earn a full time income just doing sponsored posts. I’ve not been very successful at this, because I really want to believe in the product I’m writing about to all of you. I’ve done a few sponsored posts for Suave and Sam’s Club, but I’ve turned down so many sponsored posts, simply because I just don’t believe in the product or company enough to share it with you all. Be considerate of your readers, and really work hard on being honest with them! Again, don’t pitch something to them only to make a buck.

Join a Direct Sales Company – We will talk more about this tomorrow, but you can join a direct sales company and promote it on your blog! If you are a long time reader, you know I’m a Director with Lilla Rose and have been so blessed by being part of that company! My team has grown from blog readers joining, and starting their own business!

**I have to stop for just a second and tell you that Lilla Rose is having their once a year only enrollment special! You can join as a consultant and receive free shipping on your enrollment kit! I have a lot more information on becoming a Lilla Rose Consultant on this page, so click over and read. This special is only good until the end of this month!**

Sell your own products – You might only sell digital products, or you might sell physical items. We have done both, and so far the physical items have been more successful for us. Digital items are nice because once you make them, the work is done, and you don’t have to ship anything! At this point our physical companies we own are Deborah & Co. (a clothing company), and Character Badges (a character training program for children ages 3-12). Again, we will talk into more details later in this series about what is involved in owning an actual company with physical products.

Resources to help you become a blogger

Building a Framework: The Ultimate Blogging Handbook – If you purchase just one resource to get you started, this is probably the #1 ebook I would suggest! It’s full of practical tips on just about every subject you need on blogging. They have several different packages available, depending on how deep you want to jump in and learn.

Inspired Bloggers Network Group – This is a free group on Facebook that is great for new bloggers! You can search the group for answers to your questions, or jump in and ask a question!

There are so many other courses, resources, and books I’ve purchased over the years that I’ve been blogging. But I don’t want to overwhelm you, so I’m just going to share the few resources above to get you going!

(Yes, there are affiliate links used in this post! Maybe this post helps you understand more on why they are used, and how I’m really careful on what I do promote!).

1 Comment on Blogging for an income as a Stay at Home Mom

I am a stay at home mom and recently started a blog. I am hoping that I will eventually be able to earn a good income through my blog. I realize it does take time and I appreciate the information you shared in this post.